Friday, June 3, 2016

I’ve officially turned into an old lady
since last month’s blog, since I’m walking with a cane now. It’s a knee problem, which I keep insisting
(to myself and to anyone in earshot) is temporary, but still the cane is a
marker, especially combined with flyaway white hair and skin sag. I’ve been a granny for nine years now, but
suddenly, I look more like everybody’s definition of one.

It’s weird to be moving so slowly in
such a fast-moving time. There is so
much happening, in my own life and around me, that it’s hard to keep up. I just got back from Womonwrites, my
much-loved lesbian writers’ conference, and I’m about to go to Where Womyn
Gather, a festival of womyn’s spirituality.
All of these things involve a higher intensity of thinking, feeling,
talking, connecting, and driving – and I am trying to do it with very little
standing or walking.

I have now become aware of the intricate
strategies used by disabled women.
Sisters, I never before realized the care and focus with which you go
through your days. Whatever else I’m
learning from this, it’s broadened my awareness in that area.

It does make sense that I’m
simultaneously dealing with slowness and speed, because we’re all handling some
very contradictory influences this month.
The new moon on June 4 sets the tone for the month. There’s a mutable grand cross, and this is
sensitive, changeable energy. It rushes
here, rushes there, gets distracted midway, changes its mind and heads back the
way it came. It’s like a flock of butterflies,
random and inspired.

And yet one of the planets involved is
Saturn, the planet of resistance, delays, and obstruction. Saturn keeps trying to formalize things, to
turn all these skittish ideas into some kind of resolution. What are we doing? Where are we going? We need a plan!! The other planets in the mutable grand cross
just keep zinging through the air, headstrong, excited and heedless, while
Saturn tries to catch them. Yes,
Saturn is like a big butterfly net, determined to pin things down.

If Saturn is sitting on one of your
planets, then you may be feeling stuck, while all around you, there’s a
bewitching, confusing, bewildering fluttering of wings. If you have planets in the middle of any
mutable sign (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius or Pisces), this will particularly affect you. I do, and I’m definitely
fingering Saturn as responsible for my uncooperative knee. Of course, Saturn is also sponsoring whatever
wisdom I’m supposed to glean from this.

The other planets are Jupiter and Neptune. Jupiter is all about abundance, enthusiasm,
and growth, the antithesis of Saturn.
With Jupiter and Saturn squaring each other, there’s an ongoing tension
between the urge to surge forward and the need to hold back. Jupiter is in Virgo, the most sensitive of
the earth signs, the one that is drawn to heal, fix and organize whatever is
sick, broken, or chaotic.

The Achilles heel of Virgo is a sense of
absolute certainty about what needs fixing, and how to do it. And you are probably seeing this all around
you. People are absolutely convinced
they know how to make things better for their friends, family, the country, and
the world, and if everybody would just get on board and use these particular
tools and methods, everything would be okay.
Jupiter in Virgo, especially when it’s dealing with all this resistance
from Saturn, can be zealous and dogmatic.

And Neptune is the planet which rules
hypnosis, illusion and imagination, so there could be a shortage of
clarity. All those people claiming they
know the one true path – well, they could be completely deluded. You have probably been thinking that at
least half of them are, mainly the half that don’t agree with you. I think this too. Why are people so convinced they’ve found
their Messiah? That never works out
well. Or is it just that I lack
faith?

Whatever you can say about this
rambunctious, noisy period, at least it’s very much alive. With the Gemini new moon ushering in the
month, the level of talk and writing will rise.
New ideas are popping up everywhere, some of them completely
nonsensical, some of them brilliant. The
future is taking shape, and it’s hard to see, because the images are changing
at breakneck speed, with a prescient idea one second and a crazy notion the
next. We all know that some new possibilities
are coming into being, but how to separate them from the static?

This is a time to reconcile faith and
intellect, and to work on untangling many other internal contradictions. A mutable grand cross contains all four of
the elements, so fire, water, earth and air are jockeying for position. Mental clarity is burned away by passion,
passion gives way to hard realities, reality is denied because of emotional
needs, and deep needs are asked to
justify themselves intellectually.

But the elements can work together, and
each can grow during this period of testing.
If you can stay intellectually clear in the face of passion and anger,
you can keep learning. If you can be
passionate in the face of pragmatic realities, you can remain inspired and
involved. If you can maintain your hold
on reality even though your feelings are churning, you are truly grounded. And if you can believe in the truth of your
emotions no matter what your rational mind is telling you, then you’re in touch
with your own intuitive wisdom.

I don’t have to tell you to keep
moving. There’s nothing but movement
this month. There are some strong winds
that keep stirring everything up, rearranging any order you set up for yourself. For myself, I may be walking very slowly, but
there are still ways that I can fly.